Desailly's Euro vow

Marcel Desailly: says he will deliver the Premiership and Champions League titles

Marcel Desailly today pledged to end his Chelsea career by bringing the Premiership and Champions League to Stamford Bridge.

Chelsea's captain signed a contract extension on Monday that will keep him at the club until 2005. Desailly, who will lead Chelsea as they begin their Champions League campaign against MSK Zilina tonight, said: "This is a really important season for Chelsea and I want to bring the biggest prizes to the club. We have to start well and hopefully we can surprise some people.

"It's really important that we progress in the Champions League and get to test ourselves against the big teams. We're not looking too far ahead but have to get through. We have to be careful. We need to play as a team and maintain a high level."

Desailly will be partnered by John Terry in tonight's third qualifying round against the Slovakian champions. The England defender is being groomed by Claudio Ranieri to succeed Desailly as captain and Terry wants to repay the Italian for his show of faith. Ranieri is under pressure after spending almost £75million in the summer amid persistent rumours that England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson is being lined up to take over, but Terry said: "We want to do very well for Claudio. As far as I'm concerned he's the manager who gave me my chance at Chelsea and I want him to stay.

"There's been a lot of speculation about Sven-Goran Eriksson but the manager's done a superb job to get us where we are with no money. Now he's got some money and brought a few players in and can take us further. If we can reward him by qualifying then it'll be great for everybody."

Chelsea have suffered humiliating European defeats to lesser clubs in each of the last three season but Terry is confident they'll be too good for the Slovakians.

He said: "We've let the fans down, let the club down and ourselves down over the last few years. This time we're going to put it right and have a good run."